The Wayne County Bridge is a

swing bridge A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravity, about which the swing span (turning span) can then pi ...

that crosses the Trenton Channel in the

Detroit River The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detro ...

. Located in Wayne County, Michigan, it connects

Grosse Ile Township Grosse Ile Township is a civil township of Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 10,777 at the 2020 census. The township encompasses several islands in the Detroit River, of which the largest is named as Grosse Ile. N ...

to mainland Trenton and is one of two bridges connecting the island of Grosse Ile to the mainland — the other being the tolled

Grosse Ile Toll Bridge The Grosse Ile Toll Bridge is a swing bridge that crosses the Trenton Channel of the Detroit River connecting Grosse Ile Township, Michigan to the mainland in Riverview, Michigan which is located in Wayne County, Michigan. History The Grosse Il ...

to the north. Locally, it is also known as "The Free Bridge".

History

During 1931, Wayne County converted the Michigan Central Railroad's defunct rail bridge crossing the Trenton Channel into the Wayne County Bridge for use by vehicular, bike, and pedestrian traffic. Canada Southern Bridge Company, a subsidiary of the Canada Southern Railroad Company, built the rail bridge in 1873. A number of the original support piers and other parts of the bridge served as the foundation for the Wayne County Bridge. The rail tracks across the island were replaced by a roadway that is now known as Grosse Ile Parkway. The Wayne County Bridge is commonly called the "Free Bridge" by Grosse Ile residents because of the absence of a user fee toll for crossing. Today, about three-quarters of the vehicle traffic going to and from Grosse Ile travels over the Wayne County Bridge while one-quarter crosses the

Swing span of Grosse Ile Free Bridge from south (2013)

Wayne County completely closed the bridge to vehicle traffic from May 2, 2007, until December 21, 2007, to enable the replacement of the bridge deck and related major repairs. The previous replacement of the bridge deck took place in 1979. During much of the 1979 closure period, one lane of traffic remained open on the County Bridge. At the times when the span was completely closed, the only vehicle access to and from the island was via the

. The bridge was closed on November 13, 2019, after township officials learned a report on a safety inspection of the bridge conducted three months earlier found deterioration that "caused some alarm," according to one official. Authorities said they had no prior notice. The bridge was temporarily closed while emergency repairs could be made, at which point the bridge was reopened but scheduled for extensive repairs and closures in 2020. In April 2020, Grosse Ile Township announced that the bridge would be closed for necessary repairs from May 6, 2020, until December 2020.

References

Sources

* * * Karmazin, Nancy G., "Quick History of Grosse Ile", 1999.

External links

*
Grosse Ile Bridge Company
{{Crossings navbox , structure = Crossings , place =

, bridge = Wayne County Bridge , bridge signs = , upstream =

, upstream signs = , downstream =

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...

, downstream signs = Detroit River Bridges completed in 1931 Swing bridges in the United States Bridges in Wayne County, Michigan Road bridges in Michigan Railroad bridges in Michigan